Letters to the Editor: Sept 04, 2018

Afternoon Voice

5 months ago

1) Celebrate the bond between Teachers and students

Teachers play a major role in shaping a child’s life. Since children spend a lot of time in school, in their formative and impressionable years, teachers wield a great influence on them. In India, Teachers’ Day is celebrated on September 5 every year because it is the birthday of Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, the second President of India. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan was a thinker, philosopher, academician, diplomat, and above all, a great teacher.

Teachers’ Day celebrations are meant to convey the message that we care for the teachers, just as they care for us. On this day, school students often dress up like their teachers and teach their juniors, in the way they have seen their teachers doing. Sometimes, teachers also sit in classrooms and act like students, reliving the time when they were students themselves. This creates a bond of understanding between teachers and students.

– Jubel D’Cruz

2) Respect your teachers

September 5 has a great significance in every student’s life. They celebrate the day through various programmes and give honour to their teachers. Teachers are extremely an important facet of our society for a number of reasons and their role in the society is both significant and valuable. Teachers play an extraordinary part in the lives of children during the formative years of their development and the importance of the teachers is something that cannot be understated. On this pleasant occasion, we should make a commitment to ourselves that we always will respect our teachers in every stage of our lives. Surely, it will be the best gift for them.

– Mohd Usmani

3) We are united

The unprecedented floods in Kerala has very nicely proved that though India has so many different states and the Union Territories, it is one and united in the hour of need. All the states, Union Territories, numerous NGOs, social organisations, and even the individuals rushed to the heavily flooded Kerala for the most urgent rescue and relief operations. No doubt, the vital role played by the Indian Army, Indian Navy, IAF, and the Coast Guard was very much timely and highly effective in this dire need of the hour.

– Hansraj Bhat

4) Don’t follow superstitions unreasonably

The word superstition is designated to those beliefs that result from ignorance and fear of the unknown. These are the irrational beliefs that an object, action or circumstance not logically related to a course of events influences its outcome and are totally false. But the important question is that, why do people believe in such superstitions? The answer is crystal clear — some pacific reasons stimulate them to be affected with superstitions. The sources which might have been a great source for such superstitions are Leaders/Governments, elders, cultures, imaginative stories, scholars, and myths. Superstitions are mostly ascribed to a lack of education. But, in India educated people have also been observed following beliefs that may be considered superstitious. It is surprising to note that in this modern world of science and technology, people seem to believe in some non-refundable superstitions which are not more than assumptions and presuppositions.

– Mohd Faheem

5) Condemn this negligence to waive farm loan

It’s a very sorrowful matter that more than one lakh farmers did not get the farm-loan waiver announced by the Maharashtra government as the banks who loaned them the money, did not send their names to the state government. Both the government and banks are misleading them. On one hand, the government issues notification after notification and on the other hand bank illustrates them according to their consent. In this process, the farmers are denied the loan waivers. I condemn this negligence. And extremely recommend the government to take account of the banks and find new ways to provide all farmers with loan waivers without any kind of problem.

– Qeyamuddin

6) Rahul’s rebuttal ridiculous

Rahul Gandhi’s rebuttal of the benefits of the demonetisation looked rather outdated as of now. The economy is formalised and the tax base widened as of now. The larger purpose of demonetisation was to over India from a tax non-complainant society to a compliant society and the purpose was achieved very much. The anti-tax avoidance measures undertaken by the government — demonetisation and measures to curtail circulation of cash — have borne fruit and the direct tax collections have shown a robust double-digit growth in the current fiscal. Additionally, the statistics of increase in tax compliances is a testimony to the success of the various measures adopted to contain black money. The rise in the stock market in the recent past has been unprecedented. In order to garner additional revenues, the government has proposed a 10 per cent tax on long-term capital gains tax on equities as expected. Rahul rebuttal is rather ridiculous.

– Anandambal Ramani

7) Mithi most polluted in Maharashtra

With every invitation to make Mumbai, a smart city, the Metro is eroding its resilience to perfectly normal monsoon weather events. The infrastructure of big commerce has replaced the infrastructure to withstand natural shocks. Mithi River is most polluted in Maharashtra and it is a bad news for people staying in Santa Cruz and Kalina areas. The political rivalry disrupts meaningful development to the city. Mithi River poses the main problem to Mumbai Airport as well as on July 26, 2005, deluge. Even the Air India office quarters was submerged with the water with Mithi River overflowing. Mumbai people suffer forever with Mithi in the backdrop.

– Chitra Rugmini

8) Greatest performance, but low on the Medals tally!

India’s greatest show at the Asian Games at Jakarta where we won 15 Gold medals that equalled our earlier best of 15 at the 1951 games was truly laudable. But when other countries have galloped at a fast pace over the years and gone way ahead, we have been marching at a snail’s pace only to equal our 1951 mark after almost 67 yrs which though creditable but much needs to be done to keep pace with the best.

Fifteen Gold medals and a low spot in the Medals tally for a country that is one of the most populated nations in the world deserves to improve its sporting achievements at a greater pace. We are a Cricket-centric nation and we need to encourage other sports as well. There is no dearth of funds in our country but the encouragement is missing. Sporting culture needs a makeover and the Medals would come fast and thick in the years to come. Make sports compulsory in educational institutions and government should spend a large sum of money on sporting infrastructure which is the key to excellence in any sports. We have the talent to become a global leader in professional sports and hope we are one in the coming decades!